


Gamzee: Preach

by muchlessvermillion



Series: Alternian Nights [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Blood, Clowns are weird, Gen, Masturbation, Mild Gore, Mild Language, Religion, Self-Harm, Xenobiology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 10:32:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3525998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchlessvermillion/pseuds/muchlessvermillion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know your church, alright, you know it good and harsh and sweet. You taught yourself it, stuck it all up in your pan to fill the spaces where you used to rot it, bled and sweat out the toxins in your skin until it shone pretty-new like the Messiahs had wanted. You know your motherfucking church, and you know it well.</p>
<p>Gamzee Makara, subjugglator of the mirthful church, is asked to preach for a congregation for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gamzee: Preach

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be part of a series of little oneshots about each troll's future in a world where SGRUB never happened, linked to captorvatiing's But Hope is Not Lost suffkat AU, which I created with her! (So I guess it's our AU, really.)

**Gamzee: Preach**

You know your church, alright, you know it good and harsh and sweet. You taught yourself it, stuck it all up in your pan to fill the spaces where you used to rot it, bled and sweat out the toxins in your skin until it shone pretty-new like the Messiahs had wanted. You know your motherfucking church, and you know it well. You know your tenets and your scripture as good as any brother or sister out there, you can recite like it ain't no thing. You tell it to yourself when things get bad, from time to time- everything's fucking funnier with your Messiahs laughing in your auricular sponge clots, shaking down through bones and marrow like they'll shatter if you don't laugh along, vibrate your organs to the same frequency of their big ancient chuckles.

Scripture's fucking beautiful. Consistent like laughter, true as church, true as blood, true as brethren, brothers and sisters stalking up and down the halls of the ship. There ain't no family like what's been painted into brotherhood and sisterhood by the High Subjugglators and their gods. And you hadn't really a family before them, so you have to prove your gratefulness.

And you do. You prove it with your clubs crushing lowblood skulls and twisting, pressing, grinding into heretic guts as they spill from holes made by tooth and claw of your brothers and sisters. You prove it in prayer, screaming towards the paint-dripping ceilings of the worship room. You prove it with recitation of beautiful honesty that thrills you deep down each and every time.

So you know your scripture. You know your church. It's not surprising when one of the masters that up and got your teach on asks you to lead a twilight mass.

Doesn't mean it's not scary as shit, though, for a motherfucker that ain't never preached in front of so many before. You spend the day before mostly awake, up late, though there's no sun to sear on the outside of the window blinds up here in space. You mutter your knowledge with a quick and filthy tongue, and you curse yourself a blasphemer when you fuck up, scoring little lines into the curved edges of your bony wrists as penance. Not quite enough to bleed openly, but enough to leak, keep you focused.

Everyone's a blasphemer somewhere, even the most devout. They sin by thinking themselves too good for sin- that's your most common. Everyone's a sinner, except maybe that greatest motherfucker. The Grand Highblood most faithful. When he deigns to do sermons personally, often but not often enough, you feel your bloodpusher pound to the beat of his footsteps. His voice sends sinners scurrying like squeakbeasts and makes many a faithful brother and sister weak in the knees.

And wet in the nook, some of them. You've heard stories about newly initiated following him around like puppies, panting, thinking themselves presumptuous and great enough to claim him for their own when he belongs to the church and the messiahs themselves, unless he decides otherwise. He alone and he himself. (You'd never be so impetuous, even if the greatest of his raucous prayers and the timbre of his voice do strike a chord in you, slick and deep and sugar-sweet. It's no less than any of the other faithful would feel when so religiously appeased. Natural for brothers and sisters to have their bulges pushing through slits in religious euphoria at the end of the major holidays. If it happens to you a little more often and a little more secretly than some of them, it just means you're listening harder. Paying better attention. Religion most faithful, church most true. Family and home.)

You practice until the day's almost faded away, first with your claws on your wrists and then with your fingers on your bulge. You end, satisfied, when you come to the sound of your own mouth working around unfaltering scripture, and doze a couple hours before you have to awake again to lead your mass.

The anticipation that buzzes like pissblood psiioniics under your skin and inside your bonenug keeps you awake more than the sleep you caught ever could. You find yourself in front of a crowd of siblings in paint, some of them your own age.

And then you get your preach on.

You talk about messiahs merciful and great, rage-filled. If they take the unfaithful it's only fair, it only warrants a laugh like all funny things. If a sibling all up and falls in battle, it's an honor, and they'll wait in the Dark Carnival for all those to follow, feeding off mirth and mysteries great and small. Jokes never-ending that echo through the aether, answered with chuckles beautiful.

You get lost in it.

You talk about protection. The Messiahs protect the faithful- but only because the faithful protect them first. You gotta prove your worth to the church. If a brother ain't willing to die for it, a brother doesn't believe enough. And a non-believer is a heretic and a sinner, deserving of torture and interrogation, faithlessness most unfunny. A true member of the paint listens for the laughter in their ears and does what it tells them, brings merciful retribution on those not awake enough to hear, crushes skulls and snaps bones and paints pretty pictures in blood and guts, dabs intestines in sloppy streams for texture on the walls. Messiahs great. Messiahs powerful. Messiahs bright and true.

Messiahs listen, and Messiahs know, and Messiahs arrange the most beautiful serendipity for a brother that needs it.

It's euphoric, speaking. You're gone, empty-headed, only paying attention to the words that trip off your well-trained tongue. You don't notice brothers and sisters riveted in their seats, but you hear after that they couldn't get their eyes off you.

At the end, you're screaming. Shouting down the roof.

Praised be. Amen. Pay attention to the motherfucking miracles necessary in this world, brothers and sisters, because they're paying attention to you.

When you come to, they're shouting back, bright and beautiful in their religion.

In the back of the room, stoic, silent, is the Grand Higblood himself. You catch your breath and try not to be too obvious about eyeing him, but when he tosses you a little quirk of an almost-smile, your knees tremble, your overworked throat lets out a little sigh; relief and euphoria and sharp tight want of the church's teachings, all the blessings you already got and more awaiting you.

 

Praised be.

 


End file.
